Broken Toys
by Dark Destiny
Summary: A prisoner gets a visit from an old friend


The soft click clack of slick and polished boots on the cold smooth stone of the hallway awake me. It is ironic in its own way how slick and clean the hallway is. I had only seen it once when I was brought to this place. It was a long cold hallway. The Florissant lights that shined upon it were cold as well. The walls were painted an austere grey. Practical and logical, and nothing like my situation of course. The sights of my journey were burned into my mind. It was a one way trip. How could I forget my last moments of hope for an escape that would never come?  

 My eyes opened slowly. Truly I knew what was coming. Who was coming. After all these years how could I not? Still I didn't really want to open my eyes to the truth. I guess in someway I was just like them. They never had a chance. I never had a chance. My life has been a long string of bitter ironies. Now I see how humorous my situation was, has been, and will always be. If I wasn't crazy when I started this journey I am now. I blinked softly and peered into the darkness. The figure outside has paused. I knew that it is just because of the security on my door. The door to my cage, my prison, and my world. It took a remarkable series of scans, cross checks, passwords, and DNA samplings just to view me. I almost feel honored even now that he went to so much trouble for me. 

I tested my bonds to find them as always; unyielding. From my position mostly naked held motionless to the wall by energy bonds at my wrists, ankles, neck, and above my elbows and knees I was helpless. Twice a day robots would come and take care of my physical and inescapable needs. I had long ago given up my dignity. My humanity. I was as clean as a human can be, but at the same time filthy. There are some things that can soil more then the physical. He hates what he has named "human stench".  He was never a creative creature, and no matter how many years go by I doubt he will ever be. He is predictable as clockwork. Yet at least I did not have to mire in my own filth. In his selfishness he had a strange unwanted mercy. 

I heard through the thick alien alloys of the door a beep. It slid open blinding me with its light. When it faded a little I was still nearly blind. He had in this way exploited another of my weaknesses to show that he is the one who holds the leash. I am the one who is the monkey. I must dance for him. 

I stayed silent waiting. I was long past the age of resistance. He was long past the point where he enjoyed torturing me. I thought he never would tire. Yet the day he grew bored of it he tossed me away like a broken toy. I landed, crumpled and faded in my cell, and was pinned up and packed away. Still every week at the same time like clock work he took me off the shelf to revive in him self some sort of odd nostalgia. 

From what I could make out he stood the same height as he had always been, his stick like arms folded behind his back. His back was straight and as military as one could be. I still do not know how he manages to march like he can. In secret, once when I was still a child, I tried to mimic him. I nearly fell backward on my butt. He was silhouetted by the outside light, hiding all but outlines of vague shapes. However his wide oval magenta eyes glistened, sharp with light, yet like everything blurred at the edges. He said nothing but merely stared. I blinked slowly my face expressionless empty, my eyes the same.

 I felt nothing at his presence. I understood that I was broken. An animal will chew off its own leg to escape the pain of a trap. I chewed off my soul. I was an animal just like he always said.

 We went through this ritual every week. He was the only way besides the robots that I could tell time at all. Even so one hour blended into another and stretched into eternity. It was the same thing over and over and over. He blinked once slowly as well as if to mimic my own eyes, witch must have looked something like a cow's. Big brown and devoid of any thought of resistance. Devoid of any thought at all. He moved suddenly, a break in the chain of forever. He was in a moment inches away from my face. I flinched slightly, the only movement I could manage. I did not dare close my eyes.

His breath was cool on my face. His eyes were glowing and close enough to be in focus. He slid one finger over a scar on my cheek. It was one of many, each carefully placed by him. I did not flinch at his touch. It was another lesson learned the hard way. His way.

His eyes narrowed as if his own teachings displeased him. He grabbed my face as if to keep me from moving, his claws dug into my skin and drew pricks of blood. He stared into my eyes searching for something he himself had buried. I was too numb to understand his sudden interest. His sudden anger I could feel without a word to prove its existence. I understood that when he tired of even this dull routine, the one he had interrupted, he would kill me. I wondered when that moment would come, and in that moment felt a spark of hope. It faded faster then the morning fog in the light of a new day's sun. He in his calculated meticulous perfection spotted the fading spark fleeting as it was. His eyes widened reversing the scowl. 

"I though it was gone". He whispered as if in reverence for something dead. His break in the silence was also surprising. It was unnecessary. I know what he wanted. In his limitless immortality he forgot how things can change, because he knew that they do not. He wanted me to react to him. To show that I still had the will he longed to conquer and break. The will he captured and crushed. Like a child who fills a hole-less jar full fireflies he didn't understand what he had done until long after it was too late. The light so bright yet so small had faded. He wanted to return to the summer when it was already the fall. I did not speak. He had not spoken to me, but to nothing. His words were merely his own thoughts aloud to dampen the dry stale air. He looked again claws pressing harder with some strange need. It was gone. Scowling he withdrew his hand. The blood dripped from under my eyes like tears. 

"I should kill you, you know. He said as he turned his back, his voice soft and low. "You begged for me to kill you." I could almost taste the smile in his voice at the memory of what he had done to me. "Ah the names and words you used at first. You stopped that soon enough" unspoken were the words: too soon. The joy was tinged by regret. Tainted all was tainted by his touch. "If you were to meet the man, no even the boy you once were, he would beg me to kill you. There was something then some dull reflection of his words in me, his emotions. It felt something like shame and it was foreign. It didn't reach my eyes. "What do you want? Do you even know what you want anymore? Are you somewhere in this pathetic slab of meat!" his voice rose hysterical. "Speak when you are spoken to!" He screamed punctuating his words with a shock of pain from my restraints. They too had the ability to inflict pain. My voice issued forth through my dry scratchy ill used throat. It rattled as it broke through the cobwebs, low unable to attain any strength. I had often, in the past, screamed until my throat had ruptured and bled. He never bothered to heal the damaged more then to the point where I could respond.

"Yes lord and master Zim." The words were and meek without the sarcasm once heavy on each syllable. It was as if I had struck him. He flinched at the touch of my words. 

"You know they are trying to overthrow me. They call themselves the human resistance. Pah. None of them ever could resist like you did. They brake in a third of the time it took.. He paused without finishing. I understood in a way. He had shone the reason he had broken his own pattern. "They are just children." He turned with his words as if to hear the response from a ghost that would not speak. The reply would have been. "So was I." But it never came. "I will kill you one day." He said sadly. He almost meant it. He goes then and walked out the door, and left me in my darkness and the silence that echoed with ghosts and broken toys.    


End file.
